Summery: For Charlie's 13th, Mr. Wonka takes him on his first trip to Loompaland; but they never make it. The Glass Elevator brakes leaving Charlie and Mr. Wonka alone in the coldness of a snowy desert; but they're adventure is only beginning.

A/T: Just please ignore possible spelling mistakes, Kay?

Chapter 5

As soon as Charlie caught up, he clung behind his mentor. If this day were getting any weirder, he surely didn't know what to think anymore. It was right in front of their eyes, towering over everything as it did, only something was utterly different; it was black.

"This can't be." Mr. Wonka stammered, amazed at what he were looking at. "I never attached any form of tracking device to it."

Right in front of them stood the factory of which Charlie and Mr. Wonka called home. It stood towering over everything in its path, looking over everything in its path. Smoke was slowly pouring out of the chimneys, but one thing wasn't the same, it was old and looked overly rusted or burnt. You could clearly see the gate banging back and forward as if its hinges were broken, either they'd gone 10-20 maybe even 100 years into the future or this was some big hallucination, whatever it was it was catching the attention of both the chocolatier and his apprentice.

"Should we go," Charlie pulled out his hand. "In there."

Mr. Wonka shrugged in that care-free fashion and started to trot down over towards the factory, Charlie quickly clung onto his mentor's back and watched as they slowly walked up to the gates, suddenly they came to a stop just outside of them, it looked even worse now that they were even closer to it. Cobwebs swung on each end possible, it looked like acid rain had bitten through it all and now the two Ws on top of the gate were hardly visible, it looked like a wreck, and it was making Mr. Wonka emotional just looking at it. He took a long hard breath before leaning over to Charlie, asking him if he really was up to what was inside, like he already knew what was hidden in there. Charlie held his breath, copying Mr. Wonka's actions before stepping forward, sliding himself into the courtyard behind the gates; his mentor quickly followed behind.

When the pair caught up to each other, it was only a few seconds before the same gust of wind came, trying its hardest to pick the pair up towards the factory. The gates gave a loud moan and slammed shut, the chocolatier screamed as loud as his lungs to make, chose to start walking to the front doors while he still looked as white as the snow beneath him; Charlie placed his hands quickly into the pockets of his coat and followed suite.

When Charlie met up with Mr. Wonka, the chocolatier already had his ring of keys out and was looking for the one that opened the front door, which left Charlie to stand back and watch with hope. Mr. Wonka screwed up his face as he fit a key into the small hole and tried to pull it across, it had fit perfectly into the hole, just couldn't get it to turn. Charlie was sure he heard Mr. Wonka swear once or twice, but didn't say anything, while he looked pretty angry; he thought it was just best to stay out of his way.

After what seemed like hours to the both of them, Mr. Wonka gave up and started slamming his fists on each of the three mettle doors. He'd bang on once, and then move to the next, he continued to bang hard on each of them; this was not going to work.

"Dang, there could be food in there." The Mr. Wonka moaned, stomping his foot on the hard ground covered in heavy snow, after a few seconds he clutched onto his left wrist. "Ow…"

Charlie gave this small change to have a quick go at opening the large door, he placed his fingers between the small lines in the door and pulled slightly, the door opened like it always had, showing nothing but darkness ahead of them. Mr. Wonka looked up, still clutching his hand, he stepped forward next to Charlie and stared down the long black hall; transfixed by the darkness.

"We going in there?" He said sheepishly.

Charlie nodded. "Yep."

Mr. Wonka slowly let go of his wrist, hoping the throbbing pain had gone, he was quite amazed how his little apprentice didn't seem scared at all; his pale face went red at the thought. Charlie looked up, giving the chocolatier a smug look. "You're not scared, are you?"

Mr. Wonka's expression quickly changed to his know-it-all manner, waving his hands about as she spoke.

"My dear boy! I've been to the moon and back and have endured harsher things than a black, creepy, possibly infested with spiders and ugly creatures of all sorts…." Mr. Wonka's thoughts trailed off as his mind showed himself and Charlie running away from a giant slug that surprisingly looked like Slugworth with a monocle. He shook his head quickly, continuing with his speech.

"…Halls. I went to Loompaland and fought a whangdoodle, and besides, I'm too old to be scared to that sort of-." He gulped. "Stuff."

As soon as the matter of Mr. Wonka being scared of own hallway was taken care of, it led onto the matter of finding a light switch (or as a matter of fact, switches).

If this was the main hall of the factory, then the hall had to have one main light and the side ones which the chocolatier had taken are particular liking to. Three of the small side lights had been found, but as soon as the main light switch had been found; the lights had burnt out.

"Oh, poop." Someone said after a few seconds of silence, most likely Mr. Wonka.

Charlie heard his mentor fiddle with a few things and mumble to himself, there was a popping sound which made Charlie jump and then a whizzing sound, either Mr. Wonka had given up and was trying to entertain himself somehow or he was wearing his 'thinking cap' and was trying to figure out a way to get to each other. There was more and more popping and whizzing noises though Charlie ignored them, it just had to be Mr. Wonka.

"Mr. Wonka…?" Charlie asked slowly, but didn't find the power to finish his question. His legs hurt and he was feeling terribly dizzy, at any point in time he was bound to fall and faint, he rubbed his eyes slowly, the dust making them red and itchy, and turned; walking straight into the spider-web.

He shook his hands around, moaning and trying to pull the small silk away from his eyes and face. His small idiot moment (of which were pretty rare in Charlie's case) caused him to almost fall over the red/black/brown velvet carpet and bump into many of the side light things.

"GetItOff! GetItOff!" He yelled, pulling his arms out and catching something. Whatever he'd caught, was the source of the whizzing noises. He took the soft velvet in his arms and started to rub it against his face, the whizzing noises stopped and the lights slowly flickered on. Charlie stopped rubbing his face and glanced up at Mr. Wonka, happily fixated in a colorful pinwheel looking thing that he'd placed firmly in the tips of his fingers to it wouldn't hurt the palm of his hands.

The chocolatier bent his head down, looking at a distressed apprentice. He gave a smug look before giving a joking laugh, and returning to the thing of which he held.

"I'm amazed that it's still here." Examining it carefully "just where I left it."

Charlie looked down in embarrassment and slowly let off his mentor's red velvet coat and made his way in front of him, more concerned about the state of the hall than the groovy pinwheel which made whizzing noises that Mr. Wonka seemed mildly transfixed in.

He looked up at the walls and at the small door in the other end of the hall, cobwebs with little spiders hung from nook and cranny, making him shudder with fright; he never quite like spiders, that's most likely what had caused his little problem a few minutes ago.

Mr. Wonka stopped playing with his pinwheel and placed it in his right pocket, patting it safely and smiling like a kid at Christmas.

"I'll. Just. Keep. That. With. Me." He mumbled to himself, he then noticed the young boy's amazement. "Charlie, what are you doing?"

Charlie kept his eyes on the roof, he'd always been told it was rude to talk to someone without looking face-to-face to the person you were talking with, but mainly for the point Mr. Wonka hardly used any manners himself and there were other things much more important than manners now; Charlie gave a sheepish response.

"What is this place?"

"Hey, you just answered my question with a question!" Mr. Wonka retorted in that childish manner that seemed to come and go, depending on what he was doing.

"Never mind." Charlie's mindless expression quickly changed and he turned to his mentor excitedly, almost copying his mentor's stride as he made his way for the small door at the end of the hall. This door was similar to the one Charlie had opened earlier, all it needed was a good push and it opened; but it seemed something was jamming it and Charlie had to use most of the power he had left, which wasn't much.

Mr. Wonka had followed Charlie's stride over to the Chocolate Room door, which to him didn't look like the Chocolate Room anymore. He peeped his head in, then the rest of his body slowly; Charlie taking slow steps behind in.

Most things had grown to an amount that they couldn't fit in the large room; the swudge grass was now reaching almost to Charlie's knees. The candy cane looking trees, lollypop trees and some of the other plants that situated in the Chocolate Room were almost twice maybe even four times bigger their normal size, Charlie remembered in a lesson with the chocolatier when he was around 11, that year they had been mostly focused on either the Chocolate Room or the usual brainstorming.

Some plants are used to the hotter temperatures this room uses. Mr. Wonka's voice rang through his mind. But these plants, some grow to enormous sizes if not harvested by winter; that's why the Oompa Loompas are extremely busy by Christmas to late February…

Mr. Wonka's voice trailed out his mind and the room came to more view for him, looking around, he could of swore he saw a large pumpkin behind a yellow lollypop tree.

"Charlie, how long have we been away." It was more of a comment than a question, a slight bit of fear and sadness in the way he said it too. Charlie looked down towards his mentor's back; it was slightly ripped through the shoulders.

Over the couple of years it had become quite a habit of Mr. Wonkas that anytime something wrong had happened and he didn't quite know what was wrong, he'd ask Charlie. Charlie didn't quite know if it was a test to see if he'd been listening to anything or he was just a little frightened, human contact had been new to him. But then it caught onto things like worrying about Charlie's school grades to if he had the flu or not, Charlie had then grown to the feeling that Willy Wonka was like an uncle to him, and Mr. Wonka had only realized that when Charlie sometimes referred to him as 'Sir'.

"Maybe we should look for my house." Charlie suggested, not as though they had any other choice. The chocolatier's emotional and contemplative trance quickly changed to a beaming smile, showing his bright white teeth, though the hint he was sad was still hidden behind it. Charlie slowly returned the smile before picking a path to go along, this was going to take a while, he knew that much.

"Are we going in the right direction?"

"We only have one path to go through."

"If we get lost I'm blaming you."

"You do that."

Charlie bumped into the large pumpkin he'd seen before, it gave off the smell of burning or burnt sugar when they passed it, Mr. Wonka screwed his face up when he smelt it; oblivious that Charlie had gone off around another corner of the area; kind of pleased with himself that Mr. Wonka had been a little busy to follow him, it seemed looking for his small rusted out shack had been easier than expected.

He just had to find a way to retrace his steps and bring his not-so-happy mentor back with him.

A/N: Thanx to all my regular reviewers. I'm hopefully going to get the 6th and 7th chapter up together before the DVD comes out. Just a few facts I'd like to make clear.

.Charlie was 10 when he became Willy Wonka's heir. So he's been the heir to the chocolate empire for about three years in this fic.

.Charlie is scared to spiders, yeah.

And last but not least:

.I just figured I've made Charlie the more dominate character, he's 13, so I guess his little change in moods can come and go; sometime Willy will get his turn to lead the story.